Not so Unitarian

Namasté . . . . ¡Bitches! The sacred in me offers a third-finger salute to the profane in you. As a fourth generation Unitarian, I have much in common with my fellow congregants and all the other vestiges which my church offers; however, to truly value and respect the human dignity in every other human being on this planet is a tough one!

In Praise of Pat

Representative Patricia Schroeder, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress from my home state of Colorado, had a razor-sharp wit and an unstoppable cheerfulness.  The new term, "Congressperson" was coined to accomodate her gender and position.  When she was once criticized for "running as a woman" she replied, "Do I have a choice?"

When asked how she could be a Representative of the U.S. Congress and a mother at the same time, she quipped, "I have a brain and a uterus and I use both."

She should be remembered for the Family Medical Leave Act which allows eligible employees 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave based on a family emergency or medical necessity; it also includes the birth or adoption of a child.  At the time, the first President George Bush vowed to veto "any maternity-leave type of legislation."  She called him anti-motherhood~!!

Born Patrica Nell Scott in 1940, she and I share our middle name, plus she became friends and political allies with my staunchly Democratic parents.  She was definitely one of the heroes of my youth and remains so today.

Once I saw her on Halloween about 1987 or 88.  Ironically I was dressed up as "Pat" the androgynous character on SNL.  At the last minute, I had pinned a Pat (Schroeder) button on my lapel in case no one could guess my costume.  I hadn't expected to see her, but we stopped by a Democractic Halloween party and there she was. ~ And she immediately guessed my costume and had a good chuckle when she saw the button!

She returned to Denver in Fall 2013 to stump for Andrew Romanoff who is running for the U.S. House.  She hasn't changed a bit and amid her various quips, I especially appreciated the following in the light of the many deadly shootings:  Gun nuts are keeping us from controlling nuts with guns!

She also addressed the cynicism that paralyzes many would-be activists.  The word, "cynic," comes from Greek and tranlates literally as currish or being a nasty, yapping dog!  Now, I'm a dog lover, but I can appreciate exactly what she means.

Dearest Pat:  Thank you so much for all the warm inspiration you have provided me.  Adelante Cuata!

Mi Barrio: Washington Parque

Un Barrio y un Parque

Washington Parque: Mi tierra, mi hogar.

Pisoteo el mismo campo donde seguí a mi mamá por la nieve cuando apenas tenía dos años.  Por este barrio tan conocido y tan pegado a mi alma, yo sigo mi propia sombra mientras ando abriendo nuevo camino. 

Washington Parque: el mismo terreno

Mi escape desde teenager ditching class from South y escuchando a Bob Dylan.

Ando en bici por la misma ronda donde andaba cuando era adolescente deprimida escapando la angustia de mi existencia no sabiendo quien era ni a donde iba.

I remember the time I threw up on Mrs. Payne's purse in the little Field house library.  She shrieked.  The little house is no longer a library.  The statue of Winken, Blinken & Nod is there, thankfully not vandalized.

Miro a los vecinos andando en sus trajes de gimnasio con sus lindos perros grandes de raza.  I don’t blame them, but they bug me with their whitebread brand name blandness.  But wait, are they me?  Am I them?  OMG, me temo que sí.

If the annual Furry Scurry fuera una manifestación contra la probeza del mundo, huy!  ¡Qué más lindo sería mi barrio!  Imagínense miles de manifestantes con sus perros lindos caminando a correas--todos unidos contra la injusticia.

Washington Parque, un barrio liiiiiindo con tantos estilos de arquitectura, tipos de flores coloridas y olorosas y especies de árboles, razas de perros, pero pocos rasgos de sus raíces del barrio de la media clase obrera de Denver en los 50s y 60s.  Las casas se han hinchado y ya están convertidas en maisones grandotes y lujosos.    

¿Cuál es mi nuevo camino?  Coincidir mis circulos por el parque con mis rondas de vida y seguir contemplando la ruta mia con la del parque--a rodar y rodar hasta el fin.

Where I'm at

Straddling the old school and the new tech; the baby boomer and the hipster; the old world fairytale and the new world savagery; the sanitized history and the dirty present; the beauty of nature and the environmental devastation; the gains of society and the crumbling of economics. In short, trying to maintain some balance in the midst of uncertainty, while raising kids and keeping some peace and beauty in my life.

Sammy Every Sunday

I remember supressing the anguish rising up in my ten-year-old soul when he threw himself desperately into the arms of my parents.  He knew the visit was coming to a close.  One of the "attendants" had to help pry him off my mom.  I looked away and instantly smashed the image of his pain into that little black box of my soul that I kept padlocked.

Despondent and crushed, his wails of grief echoed through us all the way home, but we pretended not to hear.  This time we did not stop to unwind and decompress at the bowling alley at 6th and Sheridan as usual.  This time we did not talk much on the way home.  It was a particularly painful good-bye.  My parents must have been wondering why.  It was always bad, but this was horrible.  Was Sammy being abused?  Had there been a violent incident this week?  Their little boy who was now 13 routinely had bruises, so how could they know?

His range of human emotions seemed completely normal, although their expression was unbounded; the look in his eyes was intelligent; how could this brother of mine be determined to be "severely mentally retarded?"  His vocabulary of 20-odd words frustrated him beyond limit.  It sometimes consisted of several four-lettered ones, and when he became frustrated in his attempts to communicate, he would routinely strip off his clothes, yell out a string of words, and run across the field where we played with him every Sunday during nice weather.  I would watch my folks do their best to catch him and get him dressed again.  Sometimes I rooted for Sammy and sometimes I rooted for Mom and Dad, but mostly my heart just ached.

Along with the chokingly pungent odor of the resident hall where Sam lived, those images of his profound grief and anguish were most impressed upon my mind, body and soul.  He was freed from his institutional dungeon in 1975.  Not an easy exit, but a brutal violent death.  Poor Sammy--his life was tragic in so many dimensions and his death was just as full of anguish.  However, to this day, I believe that not only is he our guardian angel, but he is in a place of ultimate love and transcendence.  He can finally articulate his emotions, and he never has to say good-bye to our parents again.

My Mother

Born Roberta Ruth Claybourne, in 1924, my mother was raised on a diet of hearty food, and love and laughter.  Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a bookbinder.  The only daughter in a family of five kids in a Minnesota farming community in the '20s and '30s, she found a haven among her books.  Her love for reading showed at an early age—her only true digressions from obedience were the literary contraband under her covers and the rolled-up towel hiding the bar of light under her door past bedtime. She was the only family member who had her own bedroom on account of her place as only girl.  Her other great love was for dogs.  She met the author, Albert Terhune, whose many stories of canine heroes she had followed.  She was editor of the school newspaper and class valedictorian at Albert Lea High School Class of 1942.

The most memorable day of her childhood came at age 13 when she was finally afforded much-needed prescription eyewear.  Her entire world came alive in sharp detail.  For years she had sat in the front of the class; she had squinted and waved at blurry passersby who called her name, and she had failed to distinguish the most basic elements of her visionary world due to acute astigmatism.  Her parents failed to respond earlier to her request for eyewear in keeping with their consistent favoritism displayed to their boys.  She was never one to complain, but she revealed to me, her only daughter, that while she was growing up, it was always, “Mom’s boys this and Mom’s boys that.”  Not until my grandma lay on her deathbed did she admit the error of favoring her sons when, “it was you who always came through for me, Ruthie.”

She learned the classics at the knees of her maternal grandparents, Charles and Ella Hill who also resided in Albert Lea.  The Sunday afternoons spent in their house afforded her a much-needed refuge from the teasing of her brothers.   Here she read aloud the Greek classics, Whitman, Longfellow, Emerson, and nonfiction at the behest of Grandma and  Grandpa Hill.

She was not only bright, but attractive; however, she had no use for boys (for god’s sake, she had four brothers) until she dated in college.  Once on a date when a boy teased her by saying that men never make passes at girls who wear glasses, she replied glibly, “But girls who wear glasses of men can make asses.”

When she met my father, I believe she saw a soulmate at last.  Indeed, my parents maintained a passion for each other right up until the end.  He was so refreshingly different from her brothers—he was every bit a gentleman, an intellectual, an equal partner.  She wrote to him on their 44th anniversary, the last one celebrated before she died, “Forty-four years ago I met and married the best of men, and you’ve never once let me down.”

The loss of her second son, Samuel Claybourne Woods, was the tragic culmination of his sad, short life.  She often told me that she felt that he had died three times.  Once when they discovered his developmental disability, again when he was no longer able to live at home (he went to live with Lavinia when I was born and was subsequently institutionalized at age four), and finally when he met his untimely end.  The accident that ended Sammy’s life happened in 1975 when my mother was working for the state legislature as an aide under the administration of Dick Lamm.  Once a few weeks after his death, she broke down at work.  She sat right down on the step up to the podium and cried during the session.  Her boss helped her back to her desk.   I think of her with love whenever I am in the house chambers at the Capitol.

One of her many gifts to me over the years was intangible.  I has suffered a miscarriage after finally getting pregnant.  I lost the pregnancy just before Mother's Day.  She let me know that she preferred not to celebrate it this year.  Whew!

Always the prim and proper WASPs, my parents were punctual, honest, dutiful and unable to express many of their deepest sentiments.  Excessive emotion was a disqualifier in any discussion.  If you lost your cool, you lost the argument.

When they lowered Sammy's ashes into the ground, she crumpled and cried out in grief.  Her body then shook with silent sobs; she was on her knees.  At first we were dumbfounded at her reaction since it broke from the wooden automated motions we had been going through since Sammy died.  Then my father recovered enough to decide it was inappropriate and insisted on lifting her up to allow the process of interring the cremains to continue.  I was frozen.  Why didn't I join her on her knees?  Why didn't I offer more comfort?

In the weeks that followed, she cried daily.  This provided me with an epiphany.  My parents loved me!  If she cried this much at Sammy's loss, then their love for their kids was real.  I loved my mother more than ever then.  I wanted to be by her side, help around the house, just be in the same room as her and my dad.  My cooking skills improved as I spent much time in the kitchen.  My friends called, but I made excuses.  I couldn't leave my folks alone, and I didn't want to leave home. 

When I married and became a stepmom, my mom was a wonderful grandmother.  We had so much fun with Anesa, and Anesa was such a cute and fun little girl to do things with.  Those were good times. 

I'm sorry she never got to meet my boy Mario, but she's been a profound influence even so.  So much love she gave us, it spills over into everything I do.

The Degrees of Motherhood

For eleven years I was “just” a stepmother.  I would join conversations centered on kids, but never did the other mothers afford me status because I was just a stepmother.  Although I shouldered much of the responsibility and expense of child rearing, I had no legal authority, and the conversations I joined in would go like this: 

Me:         “Oh yes, I remember when my stepdaughter did that . . . one time, she even . . . . etc.”

Others:   “Oh, you have a stepdaughter?  Does she live with you?” 

Me:         “Well, yes, part of the time, but most the time she lives with her mother in Aurora,”

Others:   “Oh.”  And they would then turn their attention to the other real mothers.

The dreaded question of Vanessa's residential status and hence the validity of my (step)motherhood came to haunt me until one day when I mentioned to my new friend Tracey that I had a stepdaughter;  I waited for the usual response, but instead she replied, “You have a stepdaughter??  Wow, how lucky you are!”  I nearly choked with gratitude.

My lack of real motherhood was not due to lack of trying.  Once I finally became pregnant, I miscarried at 12 weeks.  After two more years of trying, when my own mother was terminally ill with cancer, I became pregnant with my son.  I had arrived at the decision to forego fertility treatments and start researching adoption when my mother first became ill, but her illness occupied the family to the exclusion of all other projects. 

Toward the sad end of her battle against cancer, I found myself pregnant.  It was a complete surprise and a wonderful event, but depressing to know that she and my baby would never meet.  Had she survived, my son and I would have had the joy (and luxury) of a close, doting grandma, and perhaps been bumped up a rung in the motherhood ladder.

Becoming a real mom complete with my own labor and delivery stories afforded me all the status which had previously been withheld.  I entered the world of toy stores and playgrounds, of pediatricians and Children’s Tylenol ®, of strollers, and tiny hats, and large plastic paraphernalia crowding my living room and bedroom.  On occasion I found myself becoming one of them!  I would crow about motherhood as if I invented it, I would encourage my childless friends to engage in this unique experience as if their lives now appeared empty to me.  I had to stifle the urge to hold aloft my much sought-after gift as the glory of the universe.

It’s taken several years to come down from that high.  I no longer judge others so harshly, thank god!  To be so arrogant is tedious at best.  I have girlfriends who have chosen to remain childless, which has inspired me in another direction.  As women, we are more or less the nuturers of the human species.  So doesn't that indicate our universal mothering of others regardless of physical reproduction?  And as such, does that not unite us in our mutual caring? 

Am I an idiot to think this way?  Am I trying to erase important differences?  Well, perhaps we can at least quit judging each other based on our reproductive choices, right?  . . . and then there's Octomom!

Lavinia Linnen

Lavinia’s Eulogy, February 2, 2009

“Lavinia Linnen” -- this beautiful alliterative name was synonymous with Angel for my family and me.  She was truly a Godsend in my family’s hour of need.  She cared for my brother Sammy at a time when my mother was no longer able to.  Sammy was severely developmentally delayed and epileptic.  Lavinia rescued my family at a critical and stressful time; I truly owe her much gratitude because you see I was just a baby then and she stepped in and allowed my mother to take of me, and my other brother Henry, and at the same time feel assured that Sammy was also well cared for. 

She had so much love in her heart.  She always told me how much she loved me and how dear I was to her.  It’s not often in life that someone just loves you unconditionally—someone besides your mom or dad.  Never was there a more hardworking, generous, giving, truly Christian woman.  She showed an innate patience working with children that most folks gain only over many years of experience.  She was so wise.  She knew never to criticize a child, but only to praise the good and give lots of hugs and love.   I think she knew more than most psychologists!

My brother Henry was saddened to learn of her passing and he wrote me this:  “She was more loving and understanding to the kids she cared for than many parents are able to be with their own children.  When we would drop Sam off after having him visit back home for a day, he would run to her and hug her and you could tell that they both missed each other.  She had an endless supply of love.  Someone should build a kids’ home and name it after her.”

After my parents’ passing, I reconnected with Lavinia and we chatted a lot about the old days.  She patiently answered many old questions and helped me resolve some difficult feelings I had harbored over the years.  So much pure love shone from her heart; she helped me move ahead in a positive direction.

Dear Sweet Lavinia, now that you are in the arms of God, I know you are surrounded by many loving children. You were our blessed Angel on earth and now you will always be our Angel from above.  Thank you.